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GeoRabble Perth made a long-awaited return on the 28th November at our favourite haunt, the Universal Bar.

MC Nic Flett@mapguy83 served-up some spatial tapas with a full line-up of six speakers on everything from mapping ants to a Silicon Valley experience.

Chris Roach kicked-off by exploring what a geospatial team does in their spare time. The answer? More work! With the assistance of the actual internet (in a black box on the table), Chris took the plunge by sharing a live-demo of his handy-work mapping habitat threats for endangered marsupials. Respect for that bravery – you set the bar high!

From possums to ants, Ross Lewin shared some experience in using artificial intelligence to find Fire Ant nests. Better AI finds them before you step on them. Some pretty brutal images of what happens when you do. It turns-out that ants outweigh humans on the planet; however, that doesn’t make giant ant nests easy to distinguish from other objects in an image.

Ikrom Nishanbaev took a deep dive on exploring Australian cultural heritage sites with the Geospatial Semantic Web – giving us a master class in the code and tools behind making that look easy. That’s quite a task as it takes some real skill to make something so complex look simple.

The heritage theme continued with Damien Hassan -on finding Perth’s first BBQ. His team have been busy working on an exciting project that will soon make some incredible maps of lost Perth available to the public for the first time. There’s an amazing amount of detail in these maps – enough to be able to track down what maybe WA’s first BBQ, amongst hundreds of other gems (like subterranean loos). Stay tuned!

Kurt Adams took us on another journey through Perth over time, with a very impressive set of maps about property. Kurt covered everything from location, price and block-size, to access to transport and sewerage – with a map in an appropriate shade of brown. Did someone say Vindaloo?

And finally, Sophie Richards shared a few stories from an adventure this year at Stanford University through the Silicon Valley Innovation Academy – an amazing opportunity to learn about data science from the brightest in Silicon Valley. It’s not rocket science, but there are some clever math tricks behind the biggest brands … RabbleRabble.

Thanks again to our generous sponsors for the event – Hexagon Geospatial. Stoked to have you involved.

If you would like to help grow our Geocommunity, with brain expanding ideas or sustenance at upcoming events, please share with us at perth@georabble.org. We can’t hold these events without you!

Finally, we can’t bear the thought of wrapping-up 2018 just yet – so here’s a shout-out to the WA Geo-geek community for some Christmas drinks together on Wednesday 12th December at 5pm at The Globe 495/497 Wellington Street. Hope to see you there!

With exactly one week to go before GeoRabble Perth’s return, we are excited to introduce another a new speaker:

Damien Hassan – Finding Perth’s first BBQ: a project to geo-reference over 2,000 early survey plans of the Perth metropolitan area has been completed with the mapping interface coming soon. These plans, digitised in high resolution, provide a virtual archaeological dig into a built landscape that has changed significantly over the decades. Find your house from 100 years ago… or maybe Perth’s first BBQ?

If you haven’t got your tickets yet head over now to Eventbrite to register for your GeoRabble fix of 2018!

We’re back!

After a bit* of a hiatus, Perth GeoRabble is back in action and ready to ‘rabble! And just in time for the end of year festivities too 😉

Join us on the 28th of November as we have an exciting starting line up of speakers including:

Ross Lewin – Can Artificial Intelligence find the Ants? Work being done to trial hyperspectral imagery and Machine Learning/AI in the detection of Red Imported Fire Ants (RFIA) in Brisbane for the Queensland Government.

The Perth crew changed things up for GIS Day 2017 with GeoRabble Perth #20 – The Debate Edition.

The surprise for this one was that it was ‘everyone in’ – with full Rabble participation. After a few limbering ales to celebrate the Aussie win over Honduras in the World Cup Qualifier – MC Carly split us into a couple of teams to find out if:

Big Brother is really here?

Open Source beats Proprietary?

And Cloud trumps On-Premises?

It turns out we must have really enjoyed those drinks because we decided Big Brother still isn’t here yet, Proprietary really does beat Open Source, and On-Premises trumps Cloud!

Actually, it was all down to the quality of our teams and debate leaders of course. There were eloquent speeches that would have made Obama proud. Taking a lead from the world game – there were a few ‘own goals’ when we forgot which side we were on – especially when our MC had us switch sides at the last minute for the second debate. And there was, well, the Rabble.

A special thanks go out to MC Carly for keeping things (relatively) civil, special guest Rabbler – the Dark Spatial Lord – for being our resident disruptor, and to our Perth GeoRabble for getting into this one (and not running screaming from the bar).

A big thanks also goes to our sponsor of the night – NGIS – thank you for your support!

Maybe we’ll give this format another run sometime. Let us know if you’ve got a question you’d like the wisdom of GeoRabble to answer via perth@georabble.org or #georabbleper.

Suzy Urbaniak set the scene for the night with her infectious enthusiasm for science and education! Suzy shared her hands-on approach with real world and field based learning. She introduced her Centre of Resources Excellence Program, designed with STEAM front of mind – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.

Next up was repeat speaker Dhan Prabhu, who introduced us to “get into resources”, a unique 3 day event in WA which showcases the resources industry to secondary school students. Small groups of students get to participate in hands-on interactive activities as presented by volunteer industry professionals from a wide range of resource related disciplines.

Mark Williams spoke on his experiences with Participatory Mapping from Central Australia to Cambodia, in helping local inhabitants transcribe their expert knowledge of local environments in a geographical framework. Mark shared results of his masters study aimed at using community based adaptation and participatory mapping to explore how communities living in flood-prone river basins in Cambodia perceive and adapt to changes in flood regimes under the influence of climate change and other risk factors.

Participatory GIS and community based adaptation to climate change and other hazards – Mark Williams, M.Env,Sc (GIS and Environmental Management specialisation UWA)

Next up were Tristan Reed and Jeremy Siao Him Fa, sharing their GeoApp Development in the remote Ngalangangpum School in Warmun, 200km south of Kununurra. As part of the “Two-way Learning” model, combination of traditional indigenous methods and new economy skills, Tristan and Jeremy helped teach the students how to build a basic iPad app that functioned as a geo-diary, allowing students to catalog their excursions as well as important places around the town.

And our very own Darren Mottolini finished up with some guidance in mentoring – helping others think outside the box by sharing our geo experience and perspective on the world. Getting to the root of problems, identifying gaps and co-designing for unique solutions.

Thanks again to Damian Shepherd for MCing on the night and to our friends at Spookfish for sponsoring the Student Edition!

If you would like to help grow our Geocommunity, with brain expanding ideas or sustenance at upcoming events, please share with us at perth@georabble.org. We can’t hold these events without you!

Stay tuned via #georabbleper for news about our next event coming up soon.

We’re inviting newbies to the Perth geo-scene to share their stories about what got them on path to geo-enlightenment. Join the friendly Perth Rabble to share your passion for geo.

And for old hat Rabbers – tap a local geo-newby you know to come along and join the crew.

Doors open 5:30pm, Presentations from 6:00 pm
Universal Bar, 221 William St, Northbridge
A handful speakers, 10 minutes each, a room full of ‘rabblers, and the usual rules
Attendance is free, but for catering purposes please help our hosts by registering here

We’re inviting newbies to the Perth geo-scene to share their stories about what got them on path to geo-enlightenment. Join the friendly Perth Rabble to share your passion for geo.

And for old hat Rabbers – tap a local geo-newby you know to come along and join the crew.

Doors open 5:30pm, Presentations from 6:00 pm
Universal Bar, 221 William St, Northbridge
A handful speakers, 10 minutes each, a room full of ‘rabblers, and the usual rules
Attendance is free, but for catering purposes please help our hosts by registering here

A new speaker has been added to the fray!

Join us next week in the ‘rabblin fray to ponder, muse & debate all things spatial (and maybe even meander into the not-so-spatial!). Leading us to the fringes of the spatial spectacular, we are excited to announce the following line-up of titillating talks:

Speakers:

Dhan Prabu – Maps with a Twist

Suzanne Brown – Drainage and Liveable Communities

Tom Lynch – Turning Spatial Inside Out

Santino Vitale – What transpires – a start-up story

Date: Wednesday 22nd February 2017

Time: Doors open 5:30pm, Presentations from 6:00 pm

Location: Universal Bar, 221 William St, Northbridge

Format: A handful speakers, 10 minutes each, a room full of ‘rabblers, and the usual rules

Registration: Attendance is free, but for catering purposes we need you to register!

We’re excited to kick off 2017 with a brand new spectacular GeoRabble!

Join us in the ‘rabblin fray to ponder, muse & debate all things spatial (and maybe even meander into the not-so-spatial!). Leading us to the fringes of the spatial spectacular, we are excited to announce the following line-up of titillating talks:

Speakers:

Dhan Prabu – Maps with a Twist

Suzanne Brown – Drainage and Liveable Communities

More to be announced soon!

Date: Wednesday 22nd February 2017Time: Doors open 5:30pm, Presentations from 6:00 pmLocation: Universal Bar, 221 William St, NorthbridgeFormat: A handful speakers, 10 minutes each, a room full of ‘rabblers, and the usual rulesRegistration: Attendance is free, but for catering purposes we need you to register!